A 37-year-old man found dead in his room in the Reading Salvation Army Hostel had not been checked on for at least three days.

Andrew Darby’s brother Gregory raised concerns with the coroner at an inquest in Reading Town Hall yesterday, Tuesday, November 17, that because of the delay, the family had not been permitted to see his body.

Mr Darby was found dead on his bed in his locked room at Willow House in Willow Street, in Reading town centre on March 11, this year.

He was found by a member of the hostel staff who was making check because Mr Darby had not been seen since March 7.

The inquest was told the Salvation Army had a national policy which meant hostel residents should be seen daily and, if they had not been seen, their rooms should be checked.

Nathan Slinn, regional manager of the Salvation Army’s homelessness services, told coroner Peter Bedford Mr Darby should have been checked sooner and apologised to his family.

He said there had been a “complete change of the management team” since Mr Darby’s death, a high turnover of support staff and the team had all been offered training.

The coroner read a series of statements including one from Mr Darby’s GP surgery which described a series of incidents of self-harm and a heroin overdose on February 5 this year.

A toxicology report showed Mr Darby had taken heroin and cocaine shortly before his death and had a level of heroin in his blood associated with “fatality in individuals who had some tolerance from significant levels of abuse”.

Legal highs

Artificial cannabis in the form of “cherry bombs” also known as “legal highs” and a pipe with traces of cocaine were found in his room.

The coroner read a serious incident review prepared by the mental health services in Slough which showed Mr Darby had a "history of poor engagement", failed to attend a number of appointments and moved from Slough to Reading without informing the drug support team.

A post mortem examination showed Mr Darby's body had undergone a degree of decomposition and the cause of death was given as the combined toxic effects of heroin and cocaine.

Mr Darby’s step-mother Pauline raised concerns that drug dealers were known to frequent the hostels for homeless people in Reading to sell drugs to the residents.

She said more should have been done to help Mr Darby with his drug abuse when he was in custody.

Mr Darby’s brother Gregory said: “Realistically Andrew was not going to be stopped. It’s not the Salvation Army’s fault that he died, it’s their fault that he was left too long.

“It just meant that we couldn’t say ‘goodbye’ to him. They couldn’t have stopped it. Andrew couldn’t have been saved.”